Mr. Corman season 1, episode 5 recap – “Action Adventure”

By Jonathon Wilson
Published: August 27, 2021 (Last updated: January 23, 2024)
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Mr. Corman season 1, episode 5 recap - "Action Adventure"
3.5

Summary

“Action Adventure” evokes the pain of being stood up while skewering influencer culture and almost, almost allowing Josh a positive experience.

This recap of Mr. Corman season 1, episode 5, “Action Adventure”, contains spoilers.


Josh Corman doesn’t necessarily make things easy for himself, hence on Halloween, he dresses up as Arrow, a character from Harry Nilsson’s sixth studio album The Point!, which he has to painstakingly explain to everyone who asks. You get the sense that he probably thinks they’re the odd ones out for not being intimately familiar with ‘70s musical esoterica, since, as I say, he doesn’t really make things easy for himself. But it does give him an excuse to chat up the school’s art teacher, whose eco-friendly costume suggests the kind of free spirit that would meet him for a drink at a hipster party attended by all the local influencers Josh visibly hates.

If this doesn’t sound like the best idea for a date, that’s because it isn’t – which is probably why Josh’s date doesn’t turn up.

Mr. Corman season 1, episode 5 recap

Being stood up evokes a very particular feeling of crushing disappointment, partly because it doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a nightmare of extended time spent checking one’s phone, sending unread messages, and eventually resigning yourself to the reality that all your plans for a big night are ruined. And then there’s the people you’re with, constantly asking if your date is coming, or the waiters and bartenders giving you funny looks, and that little voice in your head reminding you how much of a loser you look. I’m guessing that’s what it’s like, anyway.

You’d think having Victor around would help. At first, Josh is reluctant to invite him, even though he’s bummed about not having Gabi for Halloween, since Josh is meeting his influencer friend Dax, played by Logic, of all people. Dax is exactly what you’d imagine – a superficial try-hard who determines his worth entirely by his number of Instagram followers. In other words, he’s the worst kind of person for Josh to be around, but Josh is so miserable that even the eternally positive Victor is lured in by Dax’s attitude. After all, he can get Victor – who attends the party dressed as Batman – up to 500 followers. Could Josh do that?

Dax has a very particular, grandiose image of himself, and this comes to the fore during the episode’s obligatory surreal sequence, which in this case is a fight with a guy from the bar and his friends that plays out like something from a comic book, with various costumed fighters trading blows in the parking lot, complete with exaggerated sound and visual effects. It’s all being imagined by Dax, who is unconscious on the floor – trust an influencer to imagine a beating that way. When he wakes up, he, Victor, and Josh all flee and get some food, laughing about the experience. Here I was, thinking that, for once, a negative had turned into a positive for Josh.

Not in this show, though. As it turns out, that blow to the head caused Dax more problems than he realized – he’s dead. Both Josh and Victor find out via social media, and the latter realizes at the same moment that he finally passed 500 followers after all.

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